Chapter XXXV: The End of a Struggle 323 (4)

Robert had been born in the South. He had lived there till his fourteenth year. He had there imbibed certain doctrines of pugnacious chivalry. There had been bred in his bone the conviction that it was every strong man's duty to protect every woman, and to punish any disrespect shown to her.

In Robert's view there was only one gentlewoman in Cairo--his "Little Missie"--and it seemed to him as clearly a matter of duty to protect her against annoyance as it was to scrub the kitchen floor or to wash the dishes.

It was through one of Robert's battles that Guilford Duncan became acquainted with his hostess, Barbara Verne. That young woman very rarely appeared in the dining room, and so the young Virginian had scarcely more than met her, when one morning on his way to breakfast he came upon a battle between Robert--"free man of color," as he loved to call himself--and three Cairo boys who had waylaid him in order to avenge the punishment he had given a few days before to one of them who had playfully hurled half a brick through Barbara's kitchen window.

When Duncan came upon the battlefield, Robert was backed up against a dead wall. Two of his adversaries had gone to grass, and the third was hesitating to prosecute the attack alone. Seeing his hesitation, Bob--great strategist that he was--instantly decided to convert his successful defense into a successful offense, without delay. Quitting his defensive position against the wall, he rushed upon his remaining adversary, who promptly retreated without waiting to reckon up the casualties.

Then Bob jumped upon his other and slowly rising antagonists, knocked them down again and hurriedly exacted of each a "wish-I-may-die" promise to let "Little Missie" alone from that day forth.

"Good for you, Bob!" exclaimed young Duncan. "But we'll make that promise more binding. Help me and I'll take these young ruffians before Judge Gross and compel them to give bonds for good behavior."

It didn't take long to arraign the culprits, prove that they had thrown a brickbat through Barbara's window, and secure an order of the court requiring them to give considerable bonds for good behavior in future.

This brought their parents into court and subjected them to a good deal of annoyance and trouble. They had to give bonds, and more troublesome still, they had to control their boys. Then again the newspapers published the facts.

In this way Guilford Duncan multiplied his enemies in Cairo. But he had a deep-seated conviction that it is worth a man's while to make enemies by doing right. In this matter he had done only right. He had invoked the law for the protection of a woman, and he had completely accomplished his purpose. He cared nothing for the revilings that ensued, but Ober, the man of brains and character who edited the principal newspaper of the town, took the matter up and made much of it.

"This town is barbaric," he wrote in his editorial columns, "It owes sincere thanks to Mr. Guilford Duncan for teaching it that law is supreme, that it is to the law we should appeal in every case of wrong doing. The parents of the young hoodlums who have been bound over to keep the peace have long needed this lesson. This newspaper rejoices that the lesson has been given in so emphatic and conspicuous a manner. It congratulates its young fellow citizen, Mr. Duncan, upon the quality of his citizenship, and upon the results of its activity."

Within an hour after that editorial appeared, three columns of advertisements were angrily withdrawn from Ober's newspaper.

Within the next hour Captain Will Hallam quietly sent in nineteen columns of advertisements, and wrote to Ober: "Stand by your guns and I'll stand by you. If the damned fools think they can squelch you or Duncan in such a case as this, we'll teach them better. Spread my advertisements all over the paper and send bills to me. Keep it up. We'll make Cairo a better town to live in, or we'll know why. The thing to do now is to make a systematic campaign against abuses. Do it with all your might, and I'll stand by you.

"I'll get Duncan to help you. He's a queer fellow, but he knows how to use vitriol instead of ink, and it's vitriol we need just now."

In the meanwhile the entire talk of the little city was of Duncan's activity in haling the hoodlum sons of highly "respectable" parents before a magistrate, as a consequence of their battle with a "nigger." On that subject tongues wagged busily, pro and con. The friends of the aggrieved parents who had been forced to give bonds for the good behavior of their ill-regulated offspring, indignantly made a "race issue" of a matter which had nothing whatever to do with race prejudice.

They could not understand how a southerner and an ex-Confederate soldier could thus have taken the part of a "nigger" against "respectable white boys." Others who were clamorous for the "rights of the negro," rejoiced in Duncan as a convert to their doctrine.

Both were wrong, of course. Neither in the remotest way recognized the real impulses of his act, namely, the impulse to protect a woman and the impulse of a law-loving citizen to insist upon the equal enforcement of the law, for the sake of good order in the community. But Duncan concerned himself with none of these things. He had done his simple duty as a man and as a citizen, and he had no care whatever for consequences.

And yet the consequences were such as vitally affected his entire career in more ways than one. His performance brought him, for one thing, into close acquaintance with a certain young woman whom he had scarcely known before, and whose destiny it was to influence the entire future course of his life.

It was Duncan's habit to sit long and smoke over his final cup of coffee at the evening meal. The other table boarders were accustomed to hurry away as soon as they had swallowed their supper, leaving him in sole possession of the dining room.

On the evening of the day on which the events already related occurred, he sat as usual, smoking, sipping his coffee, and reading Ober's evening newspaper. Presently Barbara Verne entered, and with a manner in which extreme shyness was mingled with a resolute determination to do the duty that lay before her, approached young Duncan and held out her hand. As he rose deferentially to greet her, taking her proffered hand in his, the girl said:

"I've come to thank you, Mr. Duncan. It was very kind of you--to protect Robert, you know--and me. I'm Barbara Verne. Thank you, ever so much."

As she made her little speech the brave but timid girl looked him in the eyes with the embarrassed front of a child set to do a duty, mingled with the calm composure of a woman who knows and cherishes the dignity of her womanhood.

Duncan protested that no thanks were due him for doing his simple duty, and, after a word or two more, the girl quitted the room, while Duncan, gallantly bowing, held the door open for her.

The little interview lasted for less than two minutes, and not an unnecessary word was spoken on either side. Yet it seemed to Duncan an event of consequence, as indeed, it proved to be.

Something in the girl's voice, or manner, or something in her eyes, or something in her grace of movement, her bearing, her mingled simplicity and dignity--or something in all these combined--had mightily impressed him. He had seen little of women in any intimate way, and while he honored womanhood and deferred to it, as every sound-souled man must, he had thought himself quite indifferent to women in their individual personality. But somehow he could not feel so with Barbara Verne, and later in the evening he scourged himself for his folly in continuing to think of her to the interruption of the reading he had set himself to do.

"What's the matter with me?" he asked himself almost with irritation, as at last he laid down the volume of Herbert Spencer's Social Statics, over which he had been laboring in vain. "I can't read a single paragraph with understanding. I can't keep my attention upon the lines as I read them. I must be tired out--though I don't know what has tired me. Fortunately I've no visitors to-night. They have all gone to hear the Swiss Bell Ringers at the Athenæum. I wonder if anybody took Barbara Verne?"

Thus his thought came back again to the girl and he was annoyed with himself for having permitted that.

"I do not know the girl at all," he reflected. "Except to bow a distant 'good-morning' or 'good-evening' at infrequent intervals, I never spoke to her until this evening, and then the interview was one of purely formal courtesy. And yet here I am thinking about her so persistently that even Herbert Spencer cannot win my attention."

Then he sat for a time trying to think of something else, or trying, with renewed resolution, to concentrate his attention upon his book.

The effort was a dismal failure. Barbara Verne's eyes gazed softly at him out of the page, her gentle voice echoed in his ears, and the simple, straight-forward words of thanks that she had spoken thrust out of his mind the words of the great philosopher, as the youth endeavored to read them.

He was sitting, in his dressing gown, with his slippered feet resting upon a stool. In the large grate a mass of Pittsburg coal blazed and flickered restfully. At his elbow softly burned a shaded student lamp, on a table covered with a scarlet and black cloth, and littered with books. The curtains--inexpensive, but heavy--were closely drawn to shut out every suggestion of the wintry night outside.

"Confound it," muttered the young man aloud, as he again threw down the book, this time without marking his place; "if I weren't so supremely comfortable here, I'd get myself into my clothes again and go out to fight the night for a while. That would be the right thing to do, but I'm too self-indulgent to do it. Wonder if Barbara Verne ever shirked a duty for the sake of comfort?"

Thus he began again to think of the girl.

"She's a new type to me," he thought, as he gazed into the fire. "She seems almost a child, and yet altogether a woman. Wonder what her life has been. I fancy she felt, when she came in to thank me, like a child who has been naughty and is required to make a proper apology. There was certainly a suggestion of that sort of thing in her manner, just at first. Then the strong woman in her mastered the child, and she carried out her determination resolutely. It is very charming, that combination of shy child-likeness, with the self-control of a strong woman."

At this point Guilford Duncan impatiently kicked over his footrest, rose to his feet and began dressing for the out of doors. "What an idiot I am!" he thought. "Here I am presuming to analyze the moods and motives of a young woman of whose life and character I know nothing whatever, and with whom I have exchanged not more than a dozen or twenty sentences in all my life. You need a drenching in the storm, Guilford Duncan, and you shall have it, in the interest of your sanity."

Donning his boots and overcoat, and pulling his slouch hat well down over his eyes and ears, the young man strode out into the storm.

When he came back at midnight, drenched and chilled, his fire had burned itself out. After he had rubbed his damp skin into a healthful glow, he extinguished the lamp and crawled into bed.

In spite of all, however, Guilford Duncan was still thinking of Barbara Verne, when, at last, he sank to sleep. His final thought of her took the form of a resolution:

"I will call upon her, and become really acquainted with her. That will cure me of this strange and utterly absurd fascination. Of course the girl must be commonplace in the main, and when I come to realize that, the glamour will fade away."

XIV

A SOCIAL ADVANCE

Guilford Duncan carried out his purpose, as he thought, with a good deal of tact. He began by calling, not upon Barbara, but upon three or four other young women--a thing he had never done before. He thought in this way to make his call upon Barbara, when it should come, an inconspicuous event. To his surprise, his entrance thus into society created something of a flutter among the women-folk, especially the married women who had marriageable daughters, or who were matchmakingly interested in other young women, not their daughters.

For Guilford Duncan, the moment he was thought of as a social factor, and a matrimonial possibility, was seen to be the "best catch" in the little city, the most desirable young man in the town. He was young and distinctly handsome. He was a man of education, culture, and superior intelligence. His manners were easy, polished, and very winning. Especially he treated women with a certain chivalric deference, that pleased them even more than they knew. Captain Will Hallam's wife, who was the social leader of the city, said to him one day:

"You must be careful what you do in the way of paying attention to young women. A very little attention on your part is apt to mean a great deal to a girl--and still more to her mamma."

"But why should it?" asked Duncan, in unfeigned astonishment. "Why should ordinary social courtesy on my part mean more than the same thing means in the case of any other young man?"

"I don't know that I can tell you," she answered. "At least, I don't know that I can make you understand."

"I sincerely wish you would try. I certainly do not want to----" He hesitated, and did not complete the sentence.

"Oh, I know all that. I know what you mean, because it is what I mean. I tell you that if you pay more than just a little, and a very casual, attention to any girl, the girl, and, worse still, all her elderly female relatives, are likely to misconstrue your motives. You are in serious danger of breaking some tender hearts, and winning for yourself the reputation of being that most detestable thing--a male flirt."

"But really, Mrs. Hallam," interrupted the perplexed young man, "I don't understand----"

"Of course you don't, and of course I'm glad you don't. You'd be a detestably conceited popinjay if you did. But I do, and in a strictly limited way I'm going to explain it to you for your own good, and as a warning. I can't explain it fully without treason to my own sex. But I'll tell you this much: you have a singularly pleasing, soothing, caressing, and most winning manner with women--all women. You are respectful--no, that isn't the word. You are courteously gentle and deferential, and solicitous to give pleasure. Anyhow, you please women. Then, again, you have made yourself the most conspicuous young man in Cairo, and everybody counts upon your success as certain. There, I'm not going to explain further; I only warn you."

"But, Mrs. Hallam, I have not called more than twice upon any one girl, and----"

"Well, don't. That's all I've got to say."

Duncan went away puzzled. He had intended to be very shrewd and circumspect in this matter. He had intended, by calling once or twice upon each of several young women, to deprive the calls he intended to make upon Barbara of any look of significance, and now, before he had even begun to cultivate acquaintance with Barbara, he found his small preparatory callings the subject of curiosity and gossip.

He was resolved not to be balked of his purpose, however. He saw no reason to permit that. He would go that very evening to see Barbara, and he would repeat the visit from time to time, until a fuller acquaintance with the girl should cure him of his fascination. Acquaintance must do that, he was persuaded.

He carried out his part of the program resolutely. If the results were not precisely what he expected, and intended, the fault was not his own.

Barbara Verne was not accustomed to receive visits from young men. She was almost too young, for one thing, or, at least, she had been almost too young until about this time. Moreover, her life was unusually secluded. She devoted all her time to her exacting household duties. Except that she attended church once each Sunday, she was never seen in any public place, or anywhere else, outside of her aunt's house, or the house of her single friend--Mrs. Richards--a retiring matron, who neither received company nor went out anywhere. These two--the young girl and the middle-aged matron--were somewhat more than intimate in their affection, but apart from this one friend, Barbara visited nobody. The young women of the town did not think of her, therefore, as one of themselves at all. They regarded her rather as a child than as a young woman, though if they had troubled to think about the matter, they would have remembered that she was as old as some of themselves.

When Guilford Duncan made his first call upon Barbara, therefore, that young person was very greatly astonished, but she was in no way embarrassed. It was her nature to meet all circumstances and all events frankly, and to do with conscientious faithfulness whatsoever she conceived to be her duty. So when Guilford Duncan called upon her, she promptly put away her surprise, and entered the little parlor to greet him.

She did not keep him waiting, and he specially liked that. He was apt to be impatient of waiting. She did not think it necessary to change her gown. It was her habit to dress with exceeding simplicity and extreme neatness. She could not afford anything pretentious in dress, and she would make no false pretense. Besides, she owned no better gown than the one of French calico, which she was already wearing.

So, without a minute's wait, Barbara walked into the parlor and greeted her visitor, not without some lingering trace of surprise at the honor done her, but with no touch of foolish embarrassment in her manner. Barbara was simply her own sweet, natural self, and when Duncan went away, after his call, the glamour of her personality was more strongly upon him than ever.

"She, at least," he thought as he walked toward the levee, "will not misconstrue my call, as Mrs. Hallam suggests. She is too womanly, too sincere, too genuine for that. I shall call again very soon, though, now that I think of it, she forgot to ask me to do so. Never mind. I'll manufacture some excuse--oh, by Jove, I have it! 'The Coterie' is to give a fancy dress dance a week from to-night. I'll invite her to go. I wonder if she will accept. I hope so, but even if she doesn't, the invitation will give me ample excuse for calling. I'll do it to-morrow evening. I suppose women need a little time to get ready for such functions. Anyhow, I'll call on her to-morrow evening and invite her. I wonder if anybody else has anticipated me in that? No, I'll wager not. I never heard of her going out, or even of anybody calling upon her. Still," he reflected, as he mounted to his room and lighted his lamp and his fire, "that sort of thing might happen." Then, after a pause: "I reckon I'd better send her a note to prepare her. I'll write it to-night, and leave it at breakfast in the morning. She never quits the kitchen regions while breakfast is on. I wonder if she's as neat, and trim, and pretty when she's making coffee, or doing whatever it is that they do to ham, as she always is when she visits other parts of the house?"

Turning, he locked his door. That was a very unusual proceeding on his part, as it was well understood that his "latchstring was always out" of an evening, and the young men, who were in the habit of reading in his room, were accustomed to open and enter at will, without the formality of knocking.

A moment later, some one confidently turned the door-knob. Instantly Duncan realized the situation and came to his senses. He abandoned his purpose of writing to Barbara, as an absurdity, and promptly unlocked the door to the visitor, making some sort of excuse for his forgetfulness in having fastened it.

When he called upon Barbara the next evening, and asked her to attend the dance under his escort, her astonishment was manifest, in spite of her best endeavors to conceal it. She had never before been invited to such a function, and she had not dreamed of this. That, however, was not her greatest occasion for surprise. In her modesty she had never thought of herself as in any way the fellow or equal of the other girls in town, who were eagerly invited to attend everything in the way of entertainments. If any other young man in town had asked her to be his partner on this occasion, she would have regarded the occurrence as a surprising one; to be asked by Guilford Duncan was more astonishing than all. She knew the high place he had won for himself in Cairo. She knew that he was everywhere regarded as altogether the superior of all the other young men intellectually, morally, socially, and in all other ways. She regarded him as an aristocrat among men, a man who had always held aloof from the society around him, as if it were quite unworthy of his attention. She had woman's instinct enough, too, to know how greatly honored any other girl in the city would feel if asked by him to any function. The fact that he had asked her instead of some other, puzzled her almost to bewilderment.

At first she gave him no answer. She was obviously thinking, and Duncan let her think on. He thought she looked exceedingly pretty while thinking. He observed a slight puckering of her forehead at the time, which seemed to him to add interest to her face. After a little she aid:

"Thank you, Mr. Duncan, for your invitation. I am more pleased with it than I can say. But I think I must ask you to excuse me. I think I can't possibly go to the dance."

"May I ask why not? Do you not care for dancing and society?"

"Oh, I care very much--or, rather," she added, with scrupulous fidelity to truth--"I should care very much to attend this party--I should enjoy it more than anything, but----"

"Will you think me impertinent," Duncan asked, when she thus stopped in the middle of her sentence, "will you think me impertinent if I ask you what comes after that word 'but?'"

"Oh, I think you mustn't ask me that. At least, I think I mustn't answer you."

"Very well," replied the young man, pleased with the girl's manner, in spite of his disappointment over her hesitation. "May I make a suggestion? If you had simply said 'no' to my invitation, of course I should not think of urging it upon you. But what you have said shows me that you would welcome it, if there were not something in the way. Perhaps you can overcome the difficulty. Will you not try? Will you not take a little time to think, and perhaps to consult with your friends?"

"I should like to, but that would be unfair to you. It might deprive you of an opportunity to ask someone else."

"I shall ask no one else. I shall not attend the affair at all, unless I am privileged to escort you. If I may, I will call to-morrow evening, and every evening, until you can give me your decision."

There was a certain masterfulness in his manner and utterance, which seemed to leave no chance for further discussion. So Barbara simply said:

"Very well. I'll be ready to answer you to-morrow evening. I suppose I am ready now, but you wish me to wait, and it shall be so."

Duncan hurriedly took his leave. Perhaps he feared that if he stayed longer, the girl might make her "no" a final one. Otherwise he hoped for a better outcome.

When he had gone, poor little Bab sat for a time in bewilderment. She still could not understand why such a man as Guilford Duncan--whom everybody regarded as the "coming man" in Cairo--should have chosen her, instead of some other, as the recipient of his invitation. She could not still a certain fluttering about her heart. She was full of joy, and yet she was sorely grieved that she must put aside what seemed to her a supreme opportunity to be happy for a time.

It was always her way, when any emotion pleased or troubled her, to go to her friend, Mrs. Richards, for strength and soothing. So, now she suddenly sprang up, put on her hat and wraps, and hurried to her one friend's home. The distance was so small that she needed no escort, particularly as Robert, who happened to be at the gate, could see her throughout the little journey. And she knew that the faithful negro boy would wait there until her return.

"You are all in a flurry, child," said her friend, for greeting. "What is it about? Do you come to me for advice, or sympathy, or consolation?"

For Mrs. Richards knew of Duncan's visit, and with a shrewd woman's wit she guessed that Barbara's disturbance of mind was in some way connected with that event.

"No," answered the girl. "I didn't come to consult you--at least I think I didn't--it is only that something has happened, and I want to tell you about it."

"Very well, dear. Go on."

"Oh, it's nothing very important. I don't know why I feel about it as I do, but----"

"Perhaps if you tell me what it is, I may help you to solve your riddles. What is it?"

"Why, only that Mr. Guilford Duncan has asked me to go with him to the party next week."

"Well, go on. I see nothing strange in that."

"Why--don't you understand, it is _Mr. Duncan_, and he has asked _me_."

"I see nothing yet to wonder at," calmly replied her friend. "Indeed, it seems to be quite natural. I have understood Mr. Duncan to be a gentleman of uncommonly good taste. If he has made up his mind to attend the dance, why shouldn't he choose for his partner, the best, the dearest, and most charming girl in the city? Of course you are going?"

"Why, no, of course I can't. I told him so, but he urged me to postpone a final decision till to-morrow evening. I thought that would be useless, and that the delay might make him miss a chance to engage some other girl; but he insisted that he wasn't going at all unless I would go with him, so just because he seemed to wish it, I promised to wait till to-morrow evening before saying a final 'no.' Somehow you simply have to do what Mr. Duncan wants you to do, you know."

"Mr. Guilford Duncan is rising rapidly in my estimation," answered Barbara's friend. "I have understood that he is a man of good sense and good taste. Obviously he deserves that high repute. Your 'no' must be 'yes,' Bab."

"Oh, but that's impossible!"

"I don't see it."

"Why, you _know_ I can't afford a gown."

"I still don't see it. It's to be a fancy dress affair, I believe?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then you can go in any character you like. You've your drab-gray dress, and it's as fresh as new. I'll go over to your house and alter it for you. Then with a white cape of Bishop's lawn, and a white cap and apron, we'll make you into the most charming little Quaker maiden imaginable. The character will just suit you, because you suit it. That matter is settled. Go home now and go to bed, and you mustn't dream of anything but 'yes.'"

So the good woman fended off thanks, and sent the happy girl home with an enhanced sense of the value of friendship.

XV

THE COMING OUT OF BARBARA

There was a flutter throughout the ballroom when Guilford Duncan, in the costume of Hamlet, ushered in Barbara Verne, in her Quaker-maid's dress. The impulses behind the flutter were various, but surprise was the dominant one.

Nobody had expected the reserved young Virginian to attend the function. Nobody had dreamed of seeing Barbara Verne there. Still more certainly, nobody had expected Duncan to escort "the daughter of his landlady," as one of the chattering mammas spitefully called Barbara.

"Upon my word, the girl is pretty, when she's made up that way," said another.

"She is more than pretty," quietly interposed Mrs. Will Hallam; "she is the most beautiful girl in the room. And she is far less 'made up' than any of the rest. Her costume is simplicity itself. I'm glad the dear girl is here."

The gracious lady presently beckoned to Duncan, who promptly responded. Then taking some pains that those about her should hear every word, she said:

"Thank you, Duncan, for bringing Barbara, and my sincerest congratulations on your good taste. I was just saying, when I caught your eye, that she is the most beautiful girl in the room, and certainly she is the most charming. You must bring her to me for a greeting and congratulations, when the first set is over. There goes the music, now. Don't stop to answer me."

Mrs. Hallam's little speech, and the marked favor she showed to Barbara throughout the evening, rather stimulated, than checked, the malicious chatter of the half dozen women who were disposed, on behalf of their daughters, to feel jealous of Bab. But they were at pains that Mrs. Hallam should not hear them. For that lady was conspicuously the social queen of the city and, gracious as she was, she had a certain clever way of making even her politest speeches sting like a whip-lash when she was moved to rebuke petty meanness of spirit.

"What on earth can young Duncan mean?" asked one of them when the group had placed distance between themselves and Mrs. Hallam, "by bringing that girl here? She isn't in society at all."

"I should say not. And Duncan is such an aristocrat, too."

"Perhaps that's it. Maybe he has done this by way of showing his contempt for Cairo society."

"Oh, no," answered another. "He's simply amusing himself, like the male flirt that he is. He has paid marked attention to half a dozen lovely girls in succession, and now he brings Barbara Verne here just to show them how completely he has dropped them."

In the mean while Duncan was behaving with the utmost discretion. After the first set was over, he danced with one after another of the young women upon whom he had lavished so much of "marked attention" as may be implied from one, or at most two, formal calls upon each.

But this circumspection did not stop the chatter.

"Wonder if Mrs. Hallam means to take the girl up? It would be just like her to do that, she's so fond of Duncan, you know; if she does----"

"Pardon me, but unless Mrs. Hallam has placed her character in your hands for dissection, ladies, I must ask you not to discuss it further."

That utterance came from Captain Will Hallam, who happened to be standing by the wall, very near the woman who had last spoken. It was like a thunderbolt in its effect, for there was not one of the gossips whose husband's prosperity was not in some more or less direct way in Will Hallam's hands.

Instantly he turned and walked away to where Barbara shyly sat in a corner, while half a dozen young men stood and talked with her. For whatever the matrons might think, the young men all seemed eager for Barbara's favor, and were making of her the belle of the evening by their attentions.

To the astonishment of all of them, Hallam asked Barbara for her dancing card. Nobody had ever heard of the great man of business dancing. He was middle-aged, absorbed in affairs, and positively contemptuous of all frivolities. He had come to the party only to bring his wife. He had quickly gone away again, and he had now returned only to escort Mrs. Hallam home. Nevertheless, he asked Barbara for her card and, finding it full, he turned to Duncan, saying:

"I see that the next set is yours, Duncan. Won't you give it up to me, if Miss Barbara permits?"

Half a minute later the music began again and, to the astonishment of the whole company, Captain Will Hallam led out the demure little Quakeress, and managed to walk through a cotillion with her, without once treading on her toes.

That was Captain Will Hallam's way of emphasizing his displeasure with the gossips, and marking his appreciation of Barbara. It was so effective as to set the whole feminine part of the community talking for a week to come. But of this the secluded girl heard not a word. The only change the events of the evening made in the quiet routine of her life was that all the best young men in the town became frequent callers upon her, and that thereafter she was sure to receive more than one invitation to every concert, dance, or other entertainment, as soon as its occurrence was announced.

But enough of the gossip reached Guilford Duncan's ears to induce angry resentment and self-assertion on his part.

"I told you how it would be, Duncan," said Mrs. Will Hallam to him not long afterwards. "But I'm glad you did it. It was the manly, as well as the kindly thing to do."

"Thank you," the young man answered. "I mean to do more of the same sort."

He did not explain. Mrs. Hallam was in need of no explanation.

XVI

A NEW ENEMY

It was about this time that Guilford Duncan managed to make a new enemy, and one more powerful to work him harm, upon occasion, than all the rest whom he had offended.

Napoleon Tandy, president of the X National Bank,--whose name had been first popularly shortened to "Nap Tandy" and afterwards extended again into "Napper Tandy,"--was the only man in Cairo who had enough of financial strength or of creative business capacity to be reckoned a rival of Captain Will Hallam, or his competitor in commercial enterprises.

He had several times tried conclusions with Hallam in such affairs, but always with results distinctly unsatisfactory to himself. Or, as Hallam one day explained to Duncan, "He has got a good deal of education at my hands, and he has paid his tuition fees."

Tandy was not yet past middle age, but he was always called "Old Napper Tandy," chiefly because of certain objectionable traits of character that he possessed. He was reputed to be the "meanest man in Southern Illinois." He was certainly the hardest in driving a bargain, the most merciless in its enforcement. He was cordially hated and very greatly feared. Cold, self-possessed, shrewd, and utterly selfish, his attitude toward his fellow men, and toward himself, was altogether different from that of his greater competitor, Hallam. He felt none of Hallam's "sporting interest," as Duncan called it, in playing the game of commerce and finance. He was quick to see opportunities, and somewhat bold in seizing upon them, but no thought of popular or public benefit to accrue from his enterprises ever found lodgment in his mind. He had put a large sum of money into the Through Line of freight cars, but he had done so with an eye single to his own advantage, with no thought of anything but dividends. He had contemptuously called Duncan "a rainbow chaser," because that young man had spoken with some enthusiasm of the benefits which the cheapening of freight rates must bring to the people East and West.

"Well, he has a mighty good knack of catching his rainbows, anyhow," answered Hallam; "and you'd better not let the idea get away with you that he isn't a force to be reckoned with. He's young yet, and very new to business, but you remember it was he who first suggested the Through Line, and worked it out."

In brief, Napper Tandy was a very greedy money-getter, and nothing else. He hated Hallam with all that he had of heart, because Hallam was his superior in the conduct of affairs, and because Hallam had so badly beaten him in every case of competitive effort, and perhaps because of some other things.

On his part, Will Hallam, without hating, cordially detested the man whom he had thus beaten and made afraid.

Nevertheless, these two never quarreled. Each of them was too worldly wise to make an open breach with one whose co-operation in great affairs he might at any time need.

"I never quarrel with a man," said Hallam to Duncan, by way of explaining the situation. "I never quarrel with a man till he is in the poor-house. So long as he's at large I may need him any day. It doesn't pay for a man to cut off his own fingers."

So between these two there was always an outward semblance of peace, even when war was on between them, and it frequently happened that they were closely associated in enterprises too large for either to conduct so well alone.

On the night of the ball, Hallam took Duncan aside and said to him:

"I wish you'd take the seven o'clock train this morning and go up to the mines for a few days. Everything there seems to be at sixes and sevens. I can't make head or tail out of it all. All I know is that the confounded mine is losing a good many thousands of my dollars every month. I want you to go up and make a thorough investigation. If you can't find a way out I'll shut up the hole in the ground and quit."

Captain Hallam knew, of course, that Duncan could not get much sleep that night, but he had long ago learned that Guilford Duncan utterly disregarded personal comfort whenever duty called, and so he had no hesitation in thus ordering his young lieutenant to take an early morning train on the heels of a night of dancing.

"Perhaps you'd better go up there with me," suggested Duncan.

"No, that would embarrass matters. I've been up several times, and I want you to bring a fresh mind to bear upon the trouble. I'll telegraph the people there to put everything at your command. I want you to study the situation and make up your mind, just as if the whole thing belonged to you. Part of it does, you know, and more of it shall, if you find a way out. If the thing can be made to go, I'll give you ten more of the hundred shares, in addition to the five you already own. Good-night, and good-bye till you're ready to report."

Captain Will Hallam had recently bought this coal mine on a little branch railroad in the interior of Illinois. He had not wanted to buy it, but had done so by way of saving a debt. The mine had been badly constructed at the beginning, and latterly it had been a good deal neglected. There were other difficulties, as Duncan soon discovered, and the coal resources of the property had never been half developed. In recognition of his services in examining titles and other matters connected with the purchase, Hallam had given the young man five per cent. of the company's stock. He was thus, for the first time, working in part for himself, when he was sent to study the situation.

Quietly, but insistently, in face of the surly opposition of the superintendent, who was also styled chief engineer, Duncan looked into things. It was true, as the superintendent sullenly said, that this young man knew nothing of coal mining; but it was also true, as Duncan answered, that he knew how to learn.

And he did learn. He learned so much that after three or four days, he sent a telegram to Captain Will Hallam, saying:

Give me a perfectly free hand here or call me home. I must have all
the authority you possess or I can be of no use. Answer by
telegraph.

For response, Will Hallam telegraphed:

Consider yourself the whole thing. I give you complete and absolute
authority. Hire or discharge men at will. Order all improvements
you think best. Draw on the bank here for any sum you need. Only
make the thing go if you can.

Telegraphing was much more expensive in those days--forty years ago--than it is now. And yet in neither of these dispatches was there any seeming effort to spare words. That was Captain Will Hallam's rule and practice. His frequent instruction to all his subordinates ran somewhat in this wise:

"Never save a word in telegraphing at the risk of being misunderstood. Mistakes are the most costly luxuries that a man can indulge in. Never forget that we live in the Nineteenth Century."

In that spirit Captain Will sent a dozen other telegrams that day, addressed to all the different men at the mines who had even the smallest pretension to authority. In each of them he said:

Guilford Duncan represents me fully and absolutely. His authority
is unlimited. Obey him or quit. Obey him with all good will. Help
him if you can, and in every way you can. There must be no
interference, no kicking, no withholding of information. These are
orders.

Thus armed, Duncan set to work in earnest.

"Why isn't your output of coal larger than it is?" he asked of Davidson, the superintendent.

"I can't make it larger under the circumstances."

"What are the circumstances? What difficulties are there in the way? You have miners enough, surely."

"Well, for one thing, the mine is badly ventilated. Many of the best galleries are filled with choke-damp, and must be kept closed."

"Why don't you improve the ventilation? As an engineer you ought to know how to do that much."

"It isn't feasible, as you would know, Mr. Duncan, if you knew anything about mining."

"Oh, never mind my ignorance. It is your knowledge that I'm concerned about just now. Do I understand you to say that a mine lying only seventy-five feet or so below the surface cannot be ventilated?"

"I suppose it might be if the business could afford the expense."

"The business can and will afford any expense that may be necessary to make it pay. If you know enough of engineering to devise a practicable plan for ventilating the mine, I'll furnish you all the money you need to carry it out."

He had it in mind to add: "If you don't know enough for that, I'll find a more competent engineer," but he kept his temper and refrained.

"Twouldn't be of any use," answered Davidson, after a moment. "We're producing more coal now than we can market."

"How is that? I don't understand. Your order book--which I looked over to-day--shows orders a full month ahead of shipments, besides many canceled orders, countermanded because not filled promptly enough to satisfy the customers. You're superintendent as well as engineer. I wish you'd try to clear up this puzzle."

"Oh, it's simple enough. The railroad people won't furnish us cars enough. I could ship a hundred carloads to-morrow if I had the cars, but I haven't got 'em, and I can't get 'em."

"Do you mean that you are offering coal as freight to this railroad, and the road is refusing it?"

"Yes, that's about it. I've asked for cars and can't get 'em, except a few each day."

"Do the other mines along this little branch railroad have the same trouble?"

"There is only one other mine on this line."

"Well, does it encounter the same difficulty in marketing its coal?"

"No--at least not to so great an extent. You see somebody there is standing in with the railroad people. I suppose they've had a little block of stock given to them--the railroad people, I mean. So the Quentin mines get all the cars they want, and we get only their leavings."

"Well, now, Mr. Davidson, I give you this order: Set to work at once and bring out every ton of coal you've got ready in the mine. There'll be cars here to haul it when you get it ready. Good-night, Mr. Davidson. I'll talk with you another time about the other matters. I have a good deal to do to-night, so I can't talk further with you now."

Davidson went out after a grudging "good-night." Duncan did not yet know or suspect, though he was presently to find out, that to Davidson, also, the proprietors of the rival mine were paying a little tribute, as a reward for silence and for making trouble.

Duncan sat for an hour writing letters. The typewriting machine had not been invented at that time, and even if it had been Duncan would have preferred to write these letters himself.

One of them was addressed to the General Freight Agent of the little railroad on which the mine was situated. It read as follows:

Within six days I shall have one hundred car loads of coal at the
mouth of this mine, ready for shipment upon orders. After that time
I shall have about sixty car loads ready for shipment each day.
Please see to it that an adequate supply of cars to move this
freight are side-tracked here on time.

Duncan signed that letter with all needed circumspection. The signature read:

For the Redwood Coal and Iron Company; Guilford Duncan, Manager and
Attorney at Law and in Fact for the Company.

That subscription was intended as an intimation.

When on the next afternoon the General Freight Agent, who had several times met Duncan at Captain Hallam's house, read the letter, his attention was at once attracted--precisely as Guilford Duncan had intended that it should be, by the elaborate formality of the signature.

"So Hallam's got that smart young man of his at work, has he?" the Freight Agent muttered. "Well, we'll see what we can do with him." But he deliberately waited till nine o'clock that night before responding. Then opening the telegraph key at his elbow, he called Duncan, and Duncan, who had learned telegraphing, as he had learned many other things, as a part of his equipment for work, promptly went to his key and answered the call. The General Freight Agent spelled out this message:

"Simply impossible to furnish cars you ask. Haven't got them."

Duncan responded:

"The Quentin mine gets all cars needed. We demand our share and I shall insist upon the demand."

The reply came:

"I tell you we can't do it. I'll run down to your place to-morrow or next day and explain."

"Don't want explanations," answered Duncan. "I want the cars."

"But we simply can't furnish them."

"But you simply must."

"What if I refuse?"

"Then I'll adopt other measures. But you won't refuse."

"Why not?"

"Because I know too much," answered Duncan. "I shall send to you by special messenger, on the train that will pass here within an hour, a letter making a formal tender of the freight. I make that tender by telegraph now, and you may as well accept it in that way. Your road is a chartered common carrier. Your lawyers will advise you that you cannot refuse freight formally tendered to you for carriage, unless you can show an actual inability; in that case you must show that you are doing your best by all shippers alike; that you are treating them with an equal hand. You perfectly well know you are not doing that. You know you have cars in plenty. You know you are deliberately discriminating against this mine, and in favor of its rival. I make formal demand, on behalf of the company I represent, for all cars needed for the shipment of this freight. If they are not forthcoming, as you say they will not be, I give notice that I will dump the coal by the side of your loading side-track and leave it there at your risk. Good-night." And Duncan shut off the telegraph instrument and devoted himself to the preparation of his letter of demand.

It should be explained that the young man was not "making a bluff"--in the figurative phrase of that time and country--when he telegraphed in this way to the General Freight Agent. He had his facts well in hand. As soon as Davidson's intimation had come to him to the effect that the railroad officials were "standing in" with the proprietors of the Quentin mine, he had telegraphed for Joe Arnold to come to him by a train that would arrive at midnight. Joe Arnold was a detective of rare gifts and, incidentally, a reporter on a Chicago newspaper. Captain Will Hallam often had occasion to employ Joe, and thus Duncan had come into acquaintance with the young man's peculiar abilities for finding out things. Joe Arnold had an innocent, incurious, almost stupid countenance that suggested a chronic desire for sleep rather than any more alert characteristic. He had a dull, uninterested way of asking questions which suggested the impulse of a vacuous mind to "keep the talk going," rather than any desire to secure the information asked for. Indeed, when he asked a question and it was not promptly answered, he always hastened to say:

"Oh, it's of no consequence, and it's none of my business."

But before he quitted the presence of the man to whom the question had been put, Joe Arnold usually had his answer.

To this man, when he came by the midnight train, Duncan said:

"I must know who are the stockholders in the Quentin mine--both those of record and those whose names do not appear on the stock books. If possible I must know also what each stockholder actually paid for his shares. You must hurry. I must have this information by noon to-morrow. You'll need to use money perhaps. Here's stake for expenses. Come back on the noon train to-morrow."

And Joe Arnold came back, bringing with him quite all the information that Guilford Duncan wanted, and considerably more. For he brought with him transcripts of all the correspondence that had passed between the railroad people and the mine proprietors, including a dispatch which the General Freight Agent had sent a little after midnight that morning to Napoleon Tandy, saying:

Hallam has got that sharp young fellow Duncan at work and, as you
are aware, he knows his business and his rights. I'm afraid he'll
make a formal proffer of freight and a demand for cars. I wish you
could come here, but of course you can't so long as you wish your
stockholdings in that mine down there and your relations with us to
be kept secret. Please telegraph any instructions you may wish.

That dispatch, of course, had been sent not from the mines, but from the General Freight Agent's office in another town. But there were always men in those days who were deeply interested to learn what was going on among the masters of finance, and one of these over-curious ones was a certain telegraph operator. It was his practice to take off the wires whatever dispatches there might be passing between Napper Tandy and the railroad people.

Thus it came about that Joe Arnold brought to Guilford Duncan a mass of accurate and detailed information which enabled him to take the high hand in his telegraphic controversy with the General Freight Agent, when that person, late in the evening, called him up on the wire in answer to his letter, received the night before. Thus was Duncan armed, _cap-a-pie_, for the telegraphic controversy. And thus it came about that during the next six days there were a hundred cars shunted to Redwood side-tracks, where they were rapidly loaded with the coal output of the Redwood mine.

XVII

AN OLD FRIEND

From that hour forth the Redwood mine became a paying property and, as Guilford Duncan liked to think, one which was contributing its share to the public benefit and the welfare of the people.

But Duncan's work there had only begun. Having solved the problem of shipping coal as fast as the miners could dig it, he gave his attention next to the equally pressing problem of increasing output. In the solution of that a great help unexpectedly came to him.

He was sitting late one night over the books and correspondence, when, near midnight, a miner sought speech with him.

He bade the man enter and, without looking up from the papers he was studying, asked him to take a seat. Still without taking his eyes from the papers, he presently asked of the man, who had not accepted the invitation to sit: